sentencing memo<\/a> where a January 6 defendant was convicted of crimes not related to the Capitol breach. The sentencing memo was refiled with the language removed.\n <\/p>\n\n In the January 6 civil case, Trump\u2019s opponents are arguing his alleged conduct does not meet the criteria for the government to step in for his defense, because his actions that day concerned efforts to stay in the presidency, not his obligations as the office-holder.\n <\/p>\n
\n Shumate did not dispute that Trump\u2019s Ellipse remarks that day were also aimed at boosting his personal reelection efforts. But he said that as long as a \u201cscintilla\u201d of evidence showed that the speech had a dual purpose that furthered the interests of the United States, the court should look at it as part of Trump\u2019s duties for the government and allow the government to replace him as the defendant.\n <\/p>\n
\n Ed Caspar, a lawyer for Trump\u2019s opponents who argued against the maneuver, described the speech\u2019s remarks about election reform proposals as \u201cthrow away comments.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Casper pointed to Trump\u2019s actions after his supporters descended violently onto the Capitol, including Trump\u2019s claim, when he finally encouraged the rioters to go home, that they were \u201cspecial\u201d people whom \u201cwe love.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere is no way you could conclude those actions were in service of the United States,\u201d Caspar told the judge.\n <\/p>\n
\n The plaintiffs\u2019 challenge to the department\u2019s substitution maneuver was one of several issues argued. District Judge Amit Mehta also wrestled with the Supreme Court\u2019s sweeping 2024 presidential immunity ruling in the criminal election subversion case brought by former Special Counsel Jack Smith.\n <\/p>\n
\n Smith ended that case after Trump\u2019s 2024 reelection, as Atlanta prosecutors did in another. That leaves the civil lawsuits in Mehta\u2019s court as the last major legal mechanism for holding Trump accountable for his alleged role in encouraging the mob on Congress.\n <\/p>\n
\n Mehta ruled in in 2022 that Trump could be held liable, and an appeals court upheld the decision. But the ruling by the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals also said that Trump could continue to bring immunity arguments against specific allegations that stemmed from his official duties as president. The Circuit Court laid out a framework for the trial judge to consider, distinguishing between actions taken by Trump as an office holder versus actions taken as an office seeker. The appeals court told the judge to look at the context around the president\u2019s remarks in order to decide which category applied to the allegations in the case.\n <\/p>\n
\n Joseph Sellers, a lawyer for Trump\u2019s opponents in the case, argued that the Supreme Court\u2019s immunity ruling in the criminal case a few months later had not disturbed the DC Circuit ruling and its directives for the trial court.\n <\/p>\n
\n Josh Halpern, a private attorney for Trump, however, stressed that the logic of the DC Circuit opinion in the civil lawsuits had been \u201cundermined\u201d by the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in the criminal case. Halpern urged the judge to focus primarily on the content of the speech itself, which he described as Trump calling \u201cout election fraud as he saw it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n He took issue with how the plaintiffs had highlighted the fact the rally was planned by private groups and by individuals who had previously worked for Trump\u2019s campaign, rather than by White House officials. Halpern stressed that a president should not have to worry about those details every time he spoke at an event.\n <\/p>\n
\n Presidents need immunity so that they can lead \u201cboldly\u201d and \u201cfearlessly,\u201d Halpern argued. He claimed a president would have to behave like a \u201cdefense lawyer\u201d who was always worried about litigation, if courts did not embrace a broad view of presidential immunity.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A top Justice Department attorney argued in court on Friday that President Donald Trump\u2019s inflammatory rally speech before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-361750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}